A University of Pittsburgh linguist just published a paper deconstructing social uses of the term "dude". What caught my eye in this was this passage from the AP article:
Kiesling says in the fall edition of American Speech that the word derives its power from something he calls cool solidarity - an effortless kinship that's not too intimate.Cool solidarity is especially important to young men who are under social pressure to be close with other young men, but not enough to be suspected as gay.
In other words: Close, dude, but not that close.
What struck me here was the similarity of "cool solidarity" to the ambiguity of the word "tantamount" discussed earlier in this space. "Dude", like "tantamount", is shifty: it offers closeness, but insists on separation; it identifies, but distinguishes at the same time.
This ambiguity serves another social need, as well: the requirement to deny that American life is a class-stratified minefield. The article notes that Kiesling
found the word taps into nonconformity and a new American image of leisurely success.
So by ambiguously wielding the word "dude", the rebel consumer embraces an affected casual attitude, an easy stride that says "I'm one of the proles" even as he enjoys the fruits of "leisurely success".
(Tip of the cap to brother Dylan for the link.)
Posted by Chris at 02:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Charles Taylor -- the Salon critic, not the Liberian dictator -- reviews The Polysyllabic Spree, a new collection of essays by Nick Hornby, and finds a lot to like. Hornby's essays deal with why people read, how they acquire books, and how critics so often fail to capture the joy and serendipity in both finding books and reading them.
Taylor's review struck a chord in me in relation to yesterday's "emo boy" post. Particularly relevant is this passage:
With the supermarket nature of the modern book megastores impeding the interaction of customers, and seeming to offer so much that nearly any choice you make is going to feel wrong, we need to value all the quirks of fate and coincidence that lead us to particular books.
And this:
Saying that "everyone" knows Chekhov is, whether intentionally or not, one of those statements guaranteed to make people feel out of it, to make them feel that culture is a closed circuit to which they can find no point of entry. I'm not advocating the opposite, that idiotic state of affairs where you assume that no one knows anything and even common cultural references have to be identified, for fear of insulting the reader.
Looks like Spree is going on my must-purchase list.
Posted by Chris at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)
Law professor Leila Sadat was interviewed in Salon about the Red Cross report on conditions in Guantánamo's prison camp. She echoes my comment about the ambiguity of the report's most important phrase:
I was just listening to the media and they don't want to say it was torture. They say "tantamount to torture." ... I'm thinking to myself what does "tantamount to torture" mean? I suppose what the Red Cross could be doing is declining to give a legal opinion on whether it's torture or not and leaving that to others.
"Tantamount" is one of those words with a delicious, almost Derridean shiftiness. On the one hand, it signifies nothing other than a pure equivalence or equality. "Delay was tantamount to ruin." But on the other hand, in its typical usage, it is almost always intended to minimize whatever equivalence is being proposed: to evoke "almost like" or "nearly the same as"; in other words, to deny the equivalence in the very same move as you affirm it. "Tantamount" is a copula made to disavow its own paternity, to allow the speaker to intend either a pure identity, a pure difference, or both at the same time.
This is why I called the use of "tantamount" in this situation a "doublethink" tactic. Where Orwell was, in his rationalistic way, horrified that people could affirm two mutually contradictory premises, I see this as a natural feature of our language and (perhaps) our consiciousness. It's uncanny and impolite to approach this topic with straightforward language: you just don't want to admit that your government is wearing the black hats this time. So you dance around it with glib Latinate dressing, leaving enough room for the government to claim it's not torture (because the activities were only "tantamount" to torture) while the lefty critics claim it is torture (because that's what "tantamount" means). Unable to face the ugly truth, we allow reality to slip out the back door while we're busy putting curtains on the front door. Here's Sadat again, on the reality of what's going on in Guantánamo:
It's torture. A lot of these techniques have been looked at in other countries; there's been a lot of litigation about them. They seem pretty clearly to be prohibited by the torture convention and I suppose even those that don’t amount to torture would nonetheless qualify as cruel or inhuman or degrading treatment, and that is also a legal definition.
The prison camp's status as a legal "black hole," where the normal rule of law does not apply, gets mirrored in the media reports about the camp: activities there both are and are not torture, both are and are not legal, both are and are not humane. Guantánamo is not just a black hole for the rule of law; it's a black hole for the concept of meaning. This is why the Red Cross, defenders after all of the notion of some minimum of universal human rights, can't even approach the subject without qualified and ambiguous language. But by allowing their condemnation to be couched in ambiguous terms, they allow the government just enough wiggle room to justify its actions.
Posted by Chris at 09:24 AM | Comments (1)
There are some disturbing stories in the news this week that broaden the boundaries of U.S. involvement in torture. First, the Red Cross found in a secret report that U.S. treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay is "tantamount to torture". I was eerily reminded of the ICRC's report about Iraqi detainees, which also used the "tantamount" phrasing in condemning the situation at Abu Ghraib and other prisons. Predictably, today's Times article doesn't place the Guantánamo report in any kind of context relative to the earlier Abu Ghraib reports; but at least it's there, and we can track it down online if we have to.
The other story came from the Boston Globe, which reported on a Massachusetts law firm that allegedly owns an airplane used to fly terrorists suspects to countries not so squeamish about torturing them for information. The practice goes by the notably Orwellian moniker "extraordinary rendition". Surprisingly, "rendition" isn't a new practice: at least 70 took place before September 11th, according to the article.
Now, what is striking in the Times article is the way in which it uses an ambiguity in the word "tantamount" to soften the charges the Red Cross is making. The key sentence in the lead paragraph:
The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Now, notice how "tantamount to torture" is placed in scare quotes, as if the reporter is trying to place it under question. Then in the next paragraph it's reported that "the handling of prisoners ... amounted to torture" (italics added). The headline of the piece, "Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantánamo", further distorts and muddies the actual claims made in the report. These hedgings soften the blow of acknowledging the central fact in the Red Cross reports: that the U.S. government, in several places and at different times, actively encourages and practices torture.
That journalists and politicians hide behind softening rhetorical tricks is hardly surprising. But it is illuminating: just as they use words like "rendition" to hide our real involvement in torture, they seize on distancing terms like "tantamount to torture" to reframe the issue from one of torture to one of mere abuse.
This resonates nicely with what Mike Whitney, writing for Counterpunch, has to say about American media coverage of the Fallujah invasion:
American journalists have demonstrated that they are not journalists at all, but an essential component of the military apparatus. They have merged seamlessly with their army units, presenting a story-line that is consistent with the objectives of the American occupation.
And as part and parcel of the entertainment/public relations industry, journalists were complicit with the way in which elections now happen: as waves of advertising campaigns. Here's Noam Chomsky on that issue:
As usual, the electoral campaigns were run by the PR industry, which in its regular vocation sells toothpaste, life-style drugs, automobiles, and other commodities. Its guiding principle is deceit. Its task is to undermine the "free markets" we are taught to revere: mythical entities in which informed consumers make rational choices. In such scarcely imaginable systems, businesses would provide information about their products: cheap, easy, simple. But it is hardly a secret that they do nothing of the sort. Rather, they seek to delude consumers to choose their product over some virtually identical one.
Somehow, those who framed this past election managed to keep Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo entirely out of the scope of discussion. These topics were just nowhere to be found, outside of a few articles in The Nation and other lefty sources. The PR industry that drives our electoral system knows its job well, and frames everything to its maximum advantage. Sometimes, it can keep the scariest stories at bay.
It's up to us to keep reminding ourselves that it was our government that made that Iraqi stand on the box with electrodes on his hands. And if the Red Cross report on Guantánamo is to be trusted, the Abu Ghraib situation was hardly an unusual case. I find it disillusioning that the highest levels of our government are directing this, supporting it, and in many cases getting promoted for their policies encouraging torture. What's even more disillusioning is that our media doesn't seem to care.
Posted by Chris at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)
A much-linked piece on CJR points out the mind-numbingly obvious about blogs: that they refer to one another. Intrepid analyst Zachary Roth details several cases of bloggers posting commentary about other bloggers' postings, and concludes:
Next: Kevin Drum responds to Matt Yglesias responding to Amy Sullivan responding to Air America. Then, the entire world explodes.
Blogs are conversations. Conversations involve people talking to each other, and responding to what each has to say. Self-referential it is, but surprising it ain't. What's CJR's next piece going to be, "Newspaper uses words to communicate statements of fact and opinion"?
Posted by Chris at 12:15 PM | Comments (5)
Thurston Moore has a great editorial marking the 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death today. Moore really shows the lasting influence Cobain had on the rock underground, which continues to produce vital music that the commercial venues mainly ignore. He also gets a chance to tweak the Grey Lady for publishing the made-up grunge lexicon foisted on it by clever PR folks at Sub Pop (Nirvana's first label).
Here's the nut of Moore's editorial:
When Kurt died, a lot of the capitalized froth of alternative rock fizzled. Mainstream rock lost its kingpin group, an unlikely one imbued with avant-garde genius, and contemporary rock became harder and meaner, more aggressive and dumbed down and sexist. Rage and aggression were elements for Kurt to play with as an artist, but he was profoundly gentle and intelligent. He was sincere in his distaste for bullyboy music — always pronouncing his love for queer culture, feminism and the punk rock do-it-yourself ideal.
(Devoted Nick Hornby fans will recognize my subject as a line from About A Boy.)
Posted by Chris at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)
Liz Penn is just about perfect as a movie critic: She swoons for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ("his protagonists’ aim is not only to make art; or rather, the work of art they’re seeking to produce is the co-authored story of their own love, which, like all of our love stories, is constantly being re-written"), she has an obsessive crush on Catherine Keener ("She is sexy and smart and delectably ill-humored, simultaneously hardboiled and insecure, just like – get this – a real woman you might actually know"), and she observes the Harry Dean Stanton rule. She dispenses knowing reviews with just the right balance of snark and love. So good that her thoughts on American Splendor ("a lackluster script that ultimately falls back on Hollywood's rustiest standbys") are forgivable. Almost. There's no accounting for taste, right?
Posted by Chris at 03:58 PM | Comments (0)
The Plain English Campaign, struggling hopelessly against obfuscatory cant and cliched language, has released its nominees of the most irritating phrases in general use. #1 is "at the end of the day", #4 is "with all due respect", and there is some good company in the rest of the list:
The odd thing is I noticed most writeups of this story slip an ironic cliche into their headline reportage. Examples include the Toronto Star ("our two cents' worth"), the Charlotte Observer ("It's not rocket science: Good writers must, like, avoid cliches like the plague"), the Chicago Sun Times ("think about it"), Megastar ("We'll literally be so not using any of those - 24/7"), and Plastic ("At The End Of The Day, You're Getting On My Last Nerve").
Of course, most of these articles are just slightly abridged transcriptions of the Plain English press release -- a journalistic cliche if ever there was one. The press release, though, sets the standard by titling itself "At the end of the day... we're fed up with cliches."
Posted by Chris at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)
To counterbalance last week's nitpick of Bob Somerby, I have to give him credit today for his smackdown of the Brooks piece -- which is definitely one of the most fatuous rewrites of an RNC press release to hit the wires so far.
Somerby:
At any rate, Brooks' indictment of Kerry keeps growing. Just in the past few weeks, Brooks has used his perch at the Times to list these disturbing transgressions:
- When Kerry testified to the Senate in 1972, he “still had a plummy accent.”
- At one point in time, he dated an actress.
- His haircuts are too expensive.
- His shirts cost too much.
- His yacht is too long.
- His house is too big.
Now, we can add two more indictments:
- Some of his sentences have subordinate clauses.
- Such troubling locutions make Kerry seem French.
Posted by Chris at 09:56 AM | Comments (0)
The NYT is reporting that Reuters plans to take some of its journalism offshore, using Indian scribes for cheap legwork on small- and medium-sized American companies. Check it:
The reporters in Bangalore will mostly be responsible for extracting basic financial information from company news releases and quarterly earnings reports. Tasks like interviewing a company president, talking to analysts and covering breaking news, will continue to be done bywhite peoplemore experienced journalists working in the countries where those companies operate, Mr. Schlesinger said.
(Via Sisyphus Shrugged)
Posted by Chris at 03:40 PM | Comments (1)